1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus.
2. Discussion of the Background
Electrographic image forming apparatuses include a feeder and an image forming unit. The feeder feeds a recording medium. The image forming unit prints a toner image corresponding to image data onto the recording medium. Generally, printing in the image forming unit is as follows. The toner image on a photoreceptor drum is electrostatically transferred onto the recording medium fed from the feeder by known electrophotography. Then, the recording medium after the transfer is conveyed to a fixing unit to be heated and pressed to have the toner image fixed onto the recording medium.
It is disclosed in each of Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 8-328334 and Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-115084 that a width of a printable image is determined by the maximum sheet feed width of the image forming unit (the maximum value of a width direction length orthogonal to a conveyance direction of the recording medium). In order to minimize the production cost, it is common practice to set the maximum sheet feed width of the image forming unit at the same size as the size of the shorter side of a maximum recording medium accommodable in the feeder, and to feed the maximum size recording material into the image forming unit on shorter side of the maximum size recording material.
The recent growing consciousness for global environment has created a need for considering environment in relation to production activities in factories and, additionally, a need for environmental loading reduction throughout the life cycle of industrial products. However, the above-described image forming apparatus is only directed to minimizing the production cost and gives no consideration for environmental loading. Additionally, with this configuration, the period of time for printing on a maximum size recording material is as long as traveling along the longer side of the maximum size recording material. This creates a tendency toward a reduced number of printed sheets per unit time. Although this can be addressed by increasing the processing speed of the image forming apparatus, increasing its processing speed in turn increases energy consumption due to increased use of power and develops noise. This can improve environmental loading.